The shipping news

The second issue of Jeff Smith’s Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil arrives from DC, as does the fifth issue of the second volume of Linda Medley’s Castle Waiting from Fantagraphics. Part of me feels like both of these would read better in collection, but that part is shouted down by the heftier portion that doesn’t want to wait.

I enjoyed reading the back and forth between comics retailer Alex Cox and Tom Spurgeon over at The Comics Reporter on the Shazam book’s appeal to young attendees of the New York Comic Con, and young readers in general, as it touches on a lot of questions that have been floating through my head. The first involved whether or not the per-issue cost of the series would be prohibitive for younger readers. The second centered on what quantity of casual readers made it into NYCC given the fact that tickets for some days sold out before the event began. (It’s probably incorrect, but I tend to place kids in the category of casual readers, in spite of how obsessed I was with comics from about age six and up. Maybe I just hope I was abnormal at that age and that other people have a healthier range of interests.)

Anyway, back to the ComicList.

The second-to-last volume of Chigusa Kawai’s subtle and surprising La Esperança ships via Juné. Maybe someone will hold hands with someone else in a non-platonic fashion this time around? It probably won’t matter to me if they don’t.

Last and perhaps least from Viz is the fourth volume of Yakitate!! Japan. Don’t get me wrong. I like it in the way I like most quirky, young-men-with-a-dream shônen that has perhaps a bit more fan service than I like. But I’m starting to wonder if the bread-baking is making me overlook the fact that it’s… kind of average. (For those of you who’d like a shot at securing all four volumes in one easy shot, ChunHyang has thrown them all into an auction lot, along with some other tempting combinations.)

5 Responses to The shipping news

I suppose Yakitate!! Japan is a bit average. Which might explain why I always forget to look for it when I’m shopping for manga. (I thought vol. 3 was an improvement over an uneven vol. 2, with its unfortunate gay stereotyping, so I’m curious to see which direction vol. 4 goes in.)

Well I’ve always found Yakitate to be better than either of the other shonen series Viz is releasing that day, Naruto being awfully mediocre and Death Note being good but overated as some kind of “brilliant” thriller by most people. Obviously it has to do with my personal taste for comedy shonen over serious shonen, as well as my general preference of Sunday over Jump, but I think the fact that the author takes every genre cliche and convention to the extreme is the main part of its appeal.

Well I’ve always found Yakitate to be better than either of the other shonen series Viz is releasing that day, Naruto being awfully mediocre and Death Note being good but overated as some kind of “brilliant” thriller by most people.

I couldn’t agree more… Death Note has too much talking (and too many lengthy interior monologues) and not enough action for my taste. It’s a bit like Columbo or Murder She Wrote with shinigamis.